Category: Press Release

GNOME 41 Release

We are pleased to announce the official release of GNOME 41. This release, the second to use our new version numbering scheme, comes after six months of work by the GNOME community and brings an improved Software app, new multitasking settings, enhanced power management features, and many smaller updates. GNOME 41 also includes significant improvements for developers and is available in 38 languages.

GNOME 41 will be available shortly in many distributions.

More information about the changes in GNOME 41 can be found in the release notes.

GNOME 41 would not exist without our community of contributors, supporters, friends, and users. Thank you, everyone! If you’re interested in joining the GNOME community learn more about contributing on our Get Involved page, developing apps for GNOME 41 on our new developer site, or donating and becoming a Friend of GNOME on our Donate page.

Our next release, GNOME 42, is planned for March 2022. Until then, enjoy GNOME 41!

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GNOME 41 also comes with a new release video! Thank you to our friends at Freehive for their work on this project.

GNOME 40 Release

We are proud to announce the release of GNOME 40. This release is the first to follow our new versioning scheme. It brings a new design for the Activities overview and improved support for input with Compose sequences and keyboard shortcuts, among many other things. Improvements to core GNOME applications include a redesigned Weather application, information popups in Maps, better tabs in Web, and many more.

More information about the changes in GNOME 40 can be found in the release notes:

 https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/40.0/
 https://forty.gnome.org/

GNOME 40 will be available shortly in many distributions. If you want to try it today, you can use the just-released Fedora 34 beta or the openSUSE nightly live images which both include GNOME 40.

 https://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/
 https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/GNOME:/Medias/images/iso/

We are also providing our own installer images for debugging and testing features. These images are meant for installation in a vm and require GNOME Boxes with UEFI support to boot:

 https://os.gnome.org/download/40.0/gnome_os_installer_40.0.iso

If you are interested in building applications for GNOME 40, look for the GNOME 40 Flatpak SDK, which is available in the www.flathub.org repository.

This six-month effort wouldn’t have been possible without the whole GNOME community, made of contributors and friends from all around the world: developers, designers, documentation writers, usability and accessibility
specialists, translators, maintainers, students, system administrators, companies, artists, testers, and last, but not least, our users.

GNOME would not exist without all of you. Thank you to everyone!

Our next release, GNOME 41, is planned for October 2021, after our yearly GUADEC conference, which will be online again. Until then, enjoy GNOME 40.

GNOME 3.38 Released

The latest version of GNOME 3 has been released today. Version 3.38 contains six months of work by the GNOME community and, as always, includes many new features and performance improvements.

Watch the release video here.

This release showcases a new Tour application, highlighting the main functionality of the desktop and providing first time users a nice welcome to GNOME.

GNOME Tour, a welcome app

Several core utilities have been visually refreshed, giving them a more polished and elegant experience.

For developers and advanced users, Boxes now allows editing a virtual machine’s libvirt XML directly, enabling them to change advanced settings not available in the user interface.

The complete list of features and improvements are in the release notes.

GNOME 3.38 is code-named “Orbis” in recognition of the most recent GUADEC, held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The GNOME Project is supported by the GNOME Foundation. We rely on donations to continue to drive the project forward. If you appreciate the work we do, please consider joining as a Friend of GNOME.

Press

This article can be freely reproduced with no attribution required. Press queries should be directed to gnome-press-contact@gnome.org. A screenshot pack is available for download.

GUADEC starts today!

GUADEC starts today, July 22nd! GUADEC is the main GNOME conference, bringing together users and enthusiasts from all over the world. GUADEC 2020 takes place online.

This GUADEC will feature an exciting set of speakers and sessions, which will bring you the latest news and updates about the project; introductions to open source collaborations; and explorations into free software thinking. Later in the week there will be Birds of a Feather sessions, where people get together around a shared interest, and workshops. After regular conference activities, there will be some special social events.

The full schedule for GUADEC 2020 is available online. If you would like to join the conference please register online and check your email for the links and access codes needed to join the conference.

You can learn more at the GUADEC web site and by following us on social media at @GNOME and @gnome@floss.social.

GNOME Welcomes Google Summer of Code 2020 Students

The GNOME Foundation is excited to announce that GNOME is participating in Google Summer of Code. We have participated every year since the program’s inception, and are proud to share with you our students for 2020!

Each project has an experienced community mentor working alongside the students.

To our new students, welcome! To our returning students, welcome back! We wish the students best with their respective projects.

You can follow the progress of each student by reading their blog posts on Planet GNOME.

A complete list of GNOME Summer of Code 2020 projects are available at the GNOME wiki.

The GNOME foundation is grateful for Google’s efforts and the mentors who make Google Summer of Code possible.

https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gnome-projects-for-google-summer-of-code-2020/2979

Patent case against GNOME resolved

Today, on the 20th of May 2020, the GNOME Foundation, Rothschild Patent Imaging, and Leigh M. Rothschild are pleased to announce that the patent dispute between Rothschild Patent Imaging and GNOME has been settled.

In this walk-away settlement, GNOME receives a release and covenant not to be sued for any patent held by Rothschild Patent Imaging. Further, both Rothschild Patent Imaging and Leigh Rothschild are granting a release and covenant to any software that is released under an existing Open Source Initiative approved license (and subsequent versions thereof), including for the entire Rothschild portfolio of patents, to the extent such software forms a material part of the infringement allegation.

Neil McGovern, Executive Director for the GNOME Foundation said “I’m exceptionally pleased that we have concluded this case. This will allow us to refocus our attention on creating a free software desktop, and will ensure certainty for all free and open source software in future.”

Leigh Rothschild said “I’m pleased that we have managed to settle this issue amicably. I have always supported the innovation of open source software and its developers and encourage its innovation and adoption.”

GNOME was represented pro-bono by Matt Berkowitz, Kieran Kieckhefer, Joy Wang and Larry Crouch from Shearman & Sterling LLP. GNOME and the wider free and open source community owes its thanks and gratitude to their tireless work over the past 10 months.

GNOME Foundation and Endless Launch Inaugural Community Engagement Challenge

Up to $65,000 in cash prizes to be awarded for projects that encourage open-source coders

The GNOME Foundation, in conjunction with Endless, is proud to announce that starting April 9th, entries will be accepted for the inaugural Community Engagement Challenge, an exciting new opportunity to submit a project that will engage beginning coders with the free and open-source software (“FOSS”) community.

The Challenge is a three-phase competition designed to generate stimulating ideas that will help connect the next generation of coders to the FOSS community and keep them active and engaged for years to come. Up to $65,000 in cash prizes are available to the individuals or teams with the best entries.

“Through the Challenge we hope to reach a diverse audience, to encourage beginning coders to get involved with the FOSS community to help ensure that free software is available long into the future,” said Neil McGovern, GNOME Foundation Executive Director. “What better way to do that than to reach out to the community itself to come up with creative ways to inspire the next generation?”

“Our mission at Endless has evolved initially from working with underserved populations in emerging markets and giving them access to important computing tools,” said Matt Dalio, Founder, Endless. “It has now become important to us to help the youth of today shape their technology, rather than be shaped by it. This initiative with The GNOME Foundation is the perfect partnership to further our mission.”

The Challenge will ask entrants to devise creative ways to promote open-source software to coders typically in high school and college. How a submission will achieve this goal has deliberately been left open-ended to encourage unique, novel approaches.

The first phase of the Challenge asks entrants to submit a written proposal for their concept no later than July 1, 2020. Twenty entries will be chosen to move to the next round and receive $1000 each. The second phase of the Challenge will require proof of concept, with four entries receiving $5000 and moving onto the final round. The final round will call for a deliverable end product, with the winner receiving $15,000 and the second place finisher receiving $10,000.

Apart from what is outlined in the Challenge Rules, there are no restrictions on the form submissions must take: they may be software projects, educational materials, videos, games, presentations, events, or anything else that promotes engagement of beginning coders with the FOSS community. Creativity is highly encouraged of all entrants!

The winner of the final round is currently scheduled to be announced in the spring of 2021.

The Challenge is supported by Endless, an organization comprised of companies, initiatives, and philanthropic endeavors with the singular mission to help children take control of their digital worlds, not be controlled by them.

For media assets, please click here. For questions about the Challenge, please contact us at cechallenge@gnome.org or visit www.gnome.org/challenge.

GNOME 3.36 Released

We are pleased to announce the official release of GNOME 3.36: “Gresik”. Version 3.36 contains six months of work by the GNOME community and includes many improvements, performance enhancements, and new features.

View our release video here!

Highlights from this release include visual refreshes for a number of applications and interfaces, particularly noteworthy being the login and unlock interfaces.

The complete list of features and improvements are in the release notes.

GNOME 3.36 is code-named “Gresik” in recognition of the team behind GNOME.Asia 2019, held this past year in Gresik, Indonesia.

The GNOME Project is supported by the GNOME Foundation. We rely on donations to continue to drive the project forward. If you appreciate the work we do, please consider joining as a Friend of GNOME.

Press

This article can be freely reproduced with no attribution required. Press queries should be directed to gnome-press-contact@gnome.org. A screenshot pack is available for download.

GNOME files defense against patent troll

Orinda, CA – 2019/10/21

Image from Marco Verch is available under cc-by-2.0.

A month ago, GNOME was hit by a patent troll for developing the Shotwell image management application. It’s the first time a free software project has been targeted in this way, but we worry it won’t be the last. Rothschild Patent Imaging, LLC offered to let us settle for a high five figure amount, for which they would drop the case and give us a licence to carry on developing Shotwell. This would have been simple to do so; it would have caused less work, cost less money, and provided the Foundation a lot less stress. But it also would be wrong.  Agreeing to this would leave this patent live, and allow this to be used as a weapon against countless others. We will stand firm against this baseless attack, not just for GNOME and Shotwell, but for all free and open source software projects.

For these reasons, GNOME Foundation Executive Director Neil McGovern instructed our legal counsel at Shearman & Sterling to file three papers with the court in California.

First: a motion to dismiss the case outright. We don’t believe that this is a valid patent, or that software can or should be able to be patented in this way. We want to make sure that this patent isn’t used against anyone else, ever.

Second: our answer to the claim. We don’t believe that there is a case GNOME needs to answer to. We want to show that the use of Shotwell, and free software in general, isn’t affected by this patent.

Third: our counterclaim. We want to make sure that this isn’t just dropped when Rothschild realizes we’re going to fight this.

We want to send a message to all software patent trolls out there — we will fight your suit, we will win, and we will have your patent invalidated. To do this, we need your help. Please help support the GNOME Foundation in sending a message that patent trolls should never target free software by making a donation to the GNOME Patent Troll Defense Fund. If you can’t, please help spread the word with your friends on social media.

GNOME Foundation facing lawsuit from Rothschild Patent Imaging

The GNOME Foundation has been made aware of a lawsuit from Rothschild Patent Imaging, LLC over patent 9,936,086. Rothschild allege that Shotwell, a free and open source personal photo manager infringes this patent.

Neil McGovern, Executive Director for the GNOME Foundation says “We have retained legal counsel and intend to vigorously defend against this baseless suit. Due to the ongoing litigation, we unfortunately cannot make any further comments at this time.”

Updates to this case will be published on www.gnome.org.

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.